OBJECTIVE: To examine the effectiveness of the three primary treatments for ureteropelvic junction obstruction (i.e., open pyeloplasty, minimally invasive pyeloplasty, and endopyelotomy) as assessed by failure rates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using MarketScan(®) data, we identified adults (ages 18-64) who underwent treatment for ureteropelvic junction obstruction between 2002 and 2010. Our primary outcome was failure (i.e., need for a secondary procedure). We fit a Cox proportional hazards model to examine the effects of different patient, regional, and provider characteristics on treatment failure...

PURPOSE: Precise delineation of organs at risk is a crucial task in radiotherapy treatment planning for delivering high doses to the tumour while sparing healthy tissues. In recent years, automated segmentation methods have shown an increasingly high performance for the delineation of various anatomical structures. However, this task remains challenging for organs like the esophagus, which have a versatile shape and poor contrast to neighboring tissues. For human experts, segmenting the esophagus from CT images is a time-consuming and error-prone process...

Photosystem II (PSII) is the only biological system capable of splitting water to molecular oxygen. Its reaction center (RC) is responsible for the primary charge separation that drives the water oxidation reaction. In this work, we revisit the spectroscopic properties of the PSII RC using the complex time-dependent Redfield (ctR) theory for optical lineshapes [A. Gelzinis et al., J. Chem. Phys. 142, 154107 (2015)]. We obtain the PSII RC model parameters (site energies, disorder, and reorganization energies) from the fits of several spectra and then further validate the model by calculating additional independent spectra...

Kv1.3 channels are involved in the switch to proliferation of normally quiescent cells, being implicated in the control of cell cycle in many different cell types and in many different ways. They modulate membrane potential controlling K(+) fluxes, sense changes in potential and interact with many signaling molecules through their intracellular domains. From a mechanistic point of view, we can describe the role of Kv1.3 channels in proliferation with at least three different models. In the "membrane potential model", membrane hyperpolarization resulting from Kv1...

The use of online communities and websites for health information has proliferated along with the use of mobile apps for managing health behaviors such as diet and exercise. The scarce evidence available to date suggests that users of these websites and apps differ in significant ways from non-users but most data come from US- and UK-based populations. In this study, we recruited users of nutrition, weight management, and fitness-oriented websites in the Czech Republic to better understand who uses mobile apps and who does not, including user sociodemographic and psychological profiles...

BACKGROUND: Currently, no guidelines exist to assist surgeons in providing recommendations to patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty (TKA) on when it is safe to return to driving. The purpose of this systematic review is to analyze the best available literature to assist surgeons in providing evidence-based recommendations on when it is safe to return to driving after TKA. METHODS: Following established methodology for the conduct of systematic reviews, a literature search was performed for prospective studies on driving after TKA...

The present work seeks to better understand the role of solute diffusion and solvation dynamics on bimolecular electron transfer in ionic liquids (ILs). Steady-state and time-resolved measurements of the reductive fluorescence quenching of five fluorophores ("F") by six quenchers ("Q"; electron donors) are reported in acetonitrile and two ionic liquids, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide and trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide. Data were collected on 66 different F-Q-solvent systems, which span a 2...

INTRODUCTION: Difficulties in accessing allied health services, especially in rural and remote areas, appear to be driving the use of telehealth services to children in schools. The objectives of this study were to investigate the experiences and views of school executive staff and therapy assistants regarding the feasibility and acceptability of a speech-language pathology telehealth program for children attending schools in rural and remote New South Wales, Australia. The program, called Come N See, provided therapy interventions remotely via low-bandwidth videoconferencing, with email follow-up...

Guidelines that physicians use to assess fitness to drive for dementia are limited in their currency, applicability, and rigor of development. Therefore, we performed a systematic review to determine the risk of motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) or driving impairment caused by dementia, in order to update international guidelines on driving with dementia. Seven literature databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, etc.) were searched for all research studies published after 2004 containing participants with mild, moderate, or severe dementia...

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide known to influence how humans share material resources. Here we explore whether oxytocin influences how we share knowledge. We focus on two distinguishing features of human communication, namely the ability to select communicative signals that disambiguate the many-to-many mappings that exist between a signal's form and meaning, and adjustments of those signals to the presumed cognitive characteristics of the addressee ("audience design"). Fifty-five males participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled experiment involving the intranasal administration of oxytocin...

HIV-1 protease is responsible for the cleavage of 12 non-homologous sites within the Gag and Gag-Pro-Pol polyproteins in the viral genome. Under the selective pressure of protease inhibition, the virus evolves mutations within (primary) and outside of (secondary) the active site allowing the protease to process substrates while simultaneously countering inhibition. The primary protease mutations impede inhibitor binding directly, while the secondary mutations are considered accessory mutations that compensate for a loss in fitness...

Large-scale chromosomal rearrangements are an important source of evolutionary novelty that may have reshaped the genomes of existing yeast species. They dramatically alter genome organization and gene expression fueling a phenotypic leap in response to environmental constraints. Although the emergence of such signatures of genetic diversity is thought to be associated with human exploitation of yeasts, less is known about the driving forces operating in natural habitats. Here we hypothesize that an ecological battlefield characteristic of every autumn when fruits ripen accounts for the genomic innovations in natural populations...

The PIEZO channels, a family of mechanosensitive channels in vertebrates, feature a fast activation by mechanical stimuli (e.g., membrane tension) followed by a slower inactivation. Although a medium-resolution structure of the trimeric form of PIEZO1 was solved by cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), key structural changes responsible for the channel activation and inactivation are still unknown. Toward decrypting the structural mechanism of the PIEZO1 activation and inactivation, we performed systematic coarse-grained modeling using an elastic network model and related modeling/analysis tools (i...

PURPOSE: Detailed characterization of changes in vessel size is crucial for the diagnosis and management of a variety of vascular diseases. Because clinical measurement of vessel size is typically dependent on the radiologist's subjective interpretation of the vessel borders, it is often prone to high inter- and intra-user variability. Automatic methods of vessel sizing have been developed for two-dimensional images but a fully three-dimensional (3D) method suitable for vessel sizing from volumetric X-ray computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging has heretofore not been demonstrated and validated robustly...

Under climate change, shrubs encroaching into high altitude plant communities disrupt ecosystem processes. Yet effects of encroachment on pollination mutualisms are poorly understood. Here, we probe potential fitness impacts of interference from encroaching Salix (willows) on pollination quality of the alpine skypilot, Polemonium viscosum. Overlap in flowering time of Salix and Polemonium is a precondition for interference and was surveyed in four extant and 25 historic contact zones. Pollinator sharing was ascertained from observations of willow pollen on bumble bees visiting Polemonium flowers and on Polemonium pistils...

Although trichotillomania (TTM), skin picking (SP), and nail biting (NB) have been receiving growing scientific attention, the question as to whether these disorders can be regarded as separate entities or they are different manifestations of the same underlying tendency is unclear. Data were collected online in a community survey, yielding a sample of 2705 participants (66% women, mean age: 29.1, SD: 8.6). Hierarchical factor analysis was used to identify a common latent factor and the multiple indicators and multiple causes (MIMIC) modelling was applied to test the predictive effect of borderline personality disorder symptoms, impulsivity, distress and self-esteem on pathological grooming...

The protective effects assigned to MAS receptors activation have spurred a great interest in the development of MAS agonists for clinical purposes. However, the current bases that drive the design of these ligands preclude important concepts recently addressed for MAS activation. Emerging data confirmed that physiological concentrations of peptide MAS agonists induce an atypical signaling that does not reach the metabotropic efficacy of constitutive MAS activation. The canonical activation of MAS-coupled G proteins is only achieved by supraphysiological concentrations of peptide MAS agonists or physiological concentrations of chemically modified analogues...

Understanding overfishing and regulating fishing quotas is a major global challenge for the 21st Century both in terms of providing food for humankind and to preserve the oceans' ecosystems. However, fishing is a complex economic activity, affected not just by overfishing but also by such factors as pollution, technology, financial factors and more. For this reason, it is often difficult to state with complete certainty that overfishing is the cause of the decline of a fishery. In this study, we developed a simple dynamic model specifically designed to isolate and to study the role of depletion on production...

BACKGROUND: Medical fitness to drive is one way governments control the issuing and renewal of driving licences and some jurisdictions demand mandatory reporting of unsafe drivers by doctors. AIM: We wished to determine the views, adherence rate and experiences of sleep physicians and electro-physicians with regard to South Australia's mandatory reporting law. METHODS: Self-administered surveys were delivered by post and e-mail to all South Australian Medical Board registered sleep physicians (n=49) and electro-physicians (n=11)...

BACKGROUND: Taiwan has some of the strictest alcohol-related driving laws in the world. However, its laws continue to be toughened to reduce the ever-increasing social cost of alcohol-related harm. AIM: This study assumes that alcohol-related driving laws show a spillover effect such that behavioral changes originally meant to apply behind the wheel come to affect drinking behavior in other contexts. The effects of alcohol driving laws and taxes on alcohol-related morbidity are assessed; incidence rates of alcohol-attributable diseases (AAD) serve as our measure of morbidity...